


Take Me Down By The Water

by PanBoleyn



Series: Flicker Into Light [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Faerie in Middle Earth, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-06 22:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5433857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of meetings at the riverbank, between a bargeman with a secret and an Elvenking pretending not to be a royal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In The Small Hours

**Author's Note:**

> So I've decided to do the second part of this series as a snapshot collection, because the format fits a little better - I won't need to have filler to link the scenes I want to write, mostly. 
> 
> The terms for groups of Hidden People I use are taken from my readings on the subject, though I've deliberately fiddled with the words somewhat.

When Bard next takes the barge down to collect barrels, he receives no visitors, and he tells himself that he's not disappointed. It was a reckless hope in any case; while he might have escaped detection this time, he cannot hope to continue with such good fortune if he continues to cross paths with the Elvenking. It is why, on the occasions when he must slip his skin and become the wolf again, he goes to the moors north of the ruins of Dale rather than to the woods.

 

 

He misses the hunt, of course, but he does not dare risk a return, not yet. He will give it a little more time, and then it will be all right to go back. The spiders will not kill themselves, after all, and while he's sure the elves are not idle, they haven't managed to kill them all yet, now have they?

 

 

His next trip down the river is made in the pouring rain, and he doesn't even expect any company this time. Nor does he get any, save for a thrush that takes refuge under his spare sail, chirping pitifully. “No, it's not fit for man nor beast on a day like this,” Bard murmurs to the little bird, careless about that one quirk of Girion's line with no one but the bird and the rain to hear. Well, perhaps a little more than just the rain, he thinks as he feels the tickle down his spine that means kinfolk are close. If he lets his vision blur just right, he can even see faces through the downpour. But the storm sprites are harmless enough, and will soon move on. Though given just how _much_ rain is falling, he's hardly surprised they're mixed up with this particular storm.

 

 

“You couldn't have delayed a day?” he says, tilting his head up for just a moment and blinking against the raindrops. A sudden gust of wind makes him stumble, and he rolls his eyes. Storm sprites think they're _amusing_ , how could he forget? Actually, most of the Hidden People do; they love pranks. Bard himself has a taste for mischief, it's just not one he can often afford to indulge now that he's no longer a boy. He sighs and flicks a spare carved button into the winds – it is a small token, but it's considered polite to offer visiting kin something, especially when one has been lippy with them first. It's enough that the rain does not drive directly into his eyes when he makes for home, anyway.

 

 

The night before his fourth trip in total and the third since his visitor, no one in his house gets much in the way of sleep. Tilda is not quite two now, and while most nights she sleeps through, there are nights she doesn't. She's old enough now to get about on her own, which means Bard doesn't know she's awake until a clatter in the kitchen sends him stumbling out of bed to check. Tilda is unhurt and not even crying, seeming more puzzled by the pots and pans around her than anything else. Bain and Sigrid come tumbling into the main room moments later, blinking in sleepy confusion at the mess.

 

 

Of course, by the time everything is back in place, all three of his children are awake enough that they insist they cannot possibly sleep without a story. And they don't want to go back to their little beds, so they all pile on him. Bard can only laugh at this, though, thinking of wolf pups clambering over the adults of the pack. His children don't know the truth yet, but he tries to tell them what he can.

 

 

“If we were luckier, we wouldn't have to clean up most messes – though one like just now would still be our responsibility,” he begins, leaning back and remembering when it was his mother telling him tales like this one. “Not with the bewbachs around.”

 

“What are bewbachs, Da?” Bain asks, and Bard laughs softly.

 

 

“They're household sprites,” he explains. “They pick a family to watch over and they care for them in exchange for food left out, and whatever pleasure they get from seeing their people, and the guests those people bring home, enjoying their work. Of course, you must always be careful with them.”

 

 

“Is it like the coblies?” Sigrid asking that is no surprise; she loves the stories of the minefolk, the ones that Bard knows are the first of the Hidden People the dwarves met. “How they make noise to show the miners where to go, but throw stones when the miners mock them? Only you said the stones don't do more than leave a few bruises, they never really _hurt_ the miners.”

 

 

Bard has left out some parts of the tales until his children are older – among the Hidden People are also, of course, the darker kin, who will do more than mild revenge for being slighted. But there's time to warn his children of that. “No, Sig, they don't really hurt the miners, and the bewbachs don't really harm anyone when they're insulted either. They leave, sometimes, or make messes instead of cleaning them. If it's a guest they find intolerable, they might pull pranks on him. Mess his clothing or make noises to disturb his sleep, things like that.”

 

 

“'m not a boobak,” Tilda mumbles, half-asleep and not quite managing the words properly. Bard bites back another laugh and smoothes back her curls.

 

 

“No, of course not, darling. We would never say you were.”

 

 

All in all, it is not such a bad night, but it is a long one, Bard lying awake long after stories send his children drifting off again. He is not particularly in any mood to be kept waiting, so when he arrives at the usual time but the barrels seem to be delayed, he only just manages to avoid losing his temper. Rubbing his eyes, he settles in to wait, leaning back against his mast and closing his eyes. He won't be able to properly sleep even sitting, which is good under the circumstances, but he can get some form of rest.

 

 

“I did not think this occupation was meant for the man who takes it to sleep, Bard the bargeman.”

 

 

Oh, _really_. Today? Bard opens his eyes and sure enough, there is Thranduil – oh, excuse him, _Aran_. “The barrels are late, Master Elf,” he says, voice more clipped than it was at their last meeting. He considers standing, but decides he doesn't really care if he looks foolish sitting on the floor of his barge while an extremely tall elf stands on the dock said barge is tied to. “And I did not have a restful night.”

 

 

“I did not know Laketown was so troubled.” There's a subtle change to the spicy-sharp scent of the elf – in this form Bard might not have noticed it if the wind were not ideal for such things today. (If he'd not been half-asleep, listening to the murmur of the river and the voices under it that are always clearer when his awareness is less, he'd have known the other was coming.) A slight bitter edge like concern, perhaps? Unlikely; the elves of the Greenwood have little to do with the humans of Laketown overall. But given the forces now invading the elven realm including the spiders Bard once hunted, given that people have taken to calling the Greenwood Mirkwood, perhaps Thranduil has reason to worry that the taint, whatever it might be, is spreading. That's a troubling thought.

 

 

“Not that sort of thing,” Bard says, deciding after all to get to his feet, though he doesn't move from his place by the mast. “A far more mundane – do elves have children? For all I know you might just spring up from the earth fully-formed and adult.” He is joking, more or less.

 

 

“We have children.” Thranduil had looked faintly amused even through his misapprehension that Bard's restless night had been due to some danger. It is only now, at the mention of children, that his face goes completely back to the statue-blankness that he had shown at the start of their last conversation. A strange thing, and Bard commits it to memory, though he's not sure why he bothers exactly. These meetings are unlikely to become common, after all.

 

 

“I see. Well, I have three, and there was a bit of a hassle last night,” he continues instead, as though things have not suddenly gone colder between them. “Nothing a handful of tales couldn't settle, but I'm afraid I don't go back to sleep as easily as my children do. I don't suppose elvish children ever wake their parents by accidentally sending the kitchen into chaos.”

 

 

“Tales such as why one should not give one's name to elves?”

 

 

Bard notices the evasion of anything related to elven children – and in truth, he probably should not have mentioned it after what the first comment got him, but he's already established his good sense when it comes to elves is somewhat lacking. “Not exactly, but it sounds similar enough, I suppose,” he says finally. “You already know we're a superstitious lot, and that it's nonsense to you.”

 

 

“You claim not to hold those superstitions,” Thranduil says, and this would be the time, if he were human, that Bard would expect him to cross his arms and raise his eyebrows as if he's just caught Bard out in some deceit. Of course, because he is an elf, he just stands there as though he could remain still and iron-spined for all eternity. Perhaps he could, who is Bard to say.

 

 

“Because I didn't fear to tell you my name?”

 

 

“Because you do not appear to fear _me_.”

 

 

That is a difficult observation to answer, because Bard _does_ fear the Elvenking, or rather he fears the results if the other were to learn just what he is. Yet he's known since the encounter in the forest that he does not fear so much as he ought to. “Should I?” he finally says, choosing a challenge rather than anything that might be too near a lie.

 

 

“The others did. The one before you – Iain, you called him? – would not give his name, the one before that stumbled over every word and shook terribly when I watched him. There were others, who showed their fear in different ways, but they were the most recent. You, however, show none of that.”

 

 

“No,” Bard admits. “But I continue to tell my children tales, and sing the old songs for them, because it helps them fall asleep, and because tradition matters. We are not immortal and unchanging like you, Master Elf, so traditions are the only way we linger. But tell me, has it always been one of your duties to speak to new bargemen?” A rumble from above signals the arrival of the barrels, so Bard's question goes unanswered.

 

 

The first two barrels come in such quick succession that all Bard's focus is on wrestling them into his boat without either smashing to bits, and by the time he's managed it and looks up, Thranduil is gone, no sign he was ever there save for a lingering scent on the air. Bard drums his fingers against wet wood, not so much annoyed at the abrupt departure as puzzled. Why would Thranduil bother to come back again in the first place, and did he actually delay the barrels to... What? Speak of nothing in particular?

 

 

His legs prickle in the water just as the back of his neck prickled, as he drags the other barrels into place. He remembers that moment when Thranduil had thought there was trouble in Laketown, and he wonders if there's a reason that the Hidden People feel stronger than they have in a long time.

 

 

Is it a warning? A defense against... whatever is twisting things? His uncle Edric once told him the Hidden People are Yavanna's children. They exist to keep nature from going too far out of balance, from twisting too far away from what it was meant to be. They weren't originally intended, but the Green Lady decided they were necessary anyway.

 

 

Bard isn't sure what to make of that, or of the Elvenking coming around again. It's not exactly a comforting thought, he knows that much, even as he lets a copper coin slip from his fingers into the water. It's polite to give tokens to visiting kin, after all.

 

 

He carries something to drop into the water on the next trip as well, and the one after that, which is why it's probably a blessing that those collections come without an enigmatic king with whom Bard knows he will only talk in circles. He should let that be an end to it, should enjoy the fact that kinfolk in storms and rivers mean he is no longer alone, but he finds that he cannot. Because he does not know why he's not alone, does not know what trouble begins to brew. He should continue to play the human and only take his wolf form far from any prying eyes, should not risk the returning attention of elves. But in the end, he knows this is not something he can do.

 

 

And so, the next time he slips his skin, he returns to the forest, returns to the hunt.

 


	2. But You Needed Proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil finds the bargeman curious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's another Thranduil POV! Which always takes me by surprise since my instinct is for Bard, but in very characteristic fashion, when Thranduil wants his say he shall have it.

What a strange habit the Man has developed. Thranduil watches Bard toss some token into the water, even as he watches for the arrival of barrels. This is the third time he'd seen Bard do so – the first time, he'd turned back after their last conversation in time to see it, and then there had been another occasion when Bard had not seen him, far back as he was.

 

 

As far back as he is today, and yet, as the wind blowing toward the river picks up, Bard almost turns his way, almost as if he knows Thranduil is there. Impossible, of course, and yet that is how it looks.

 

 

The wolf has returned to his woods.

 

 

It's an irritation more than it is anything else, Thranduil admits to himself, and that only because he still knows little and less of where the creature comes from. It continues to be useful, killing spiders and only spiders – what does it _eat_ , why does it not hunt food in the woods as another animal would? The spiders are left whole save for the killing blows, it certainly does not eat them. But he thinks of Caladon's words, of the tales men tell of giant wolves with human eyes.

 

 

He wonders if this bargeman who seems so unafraid of him might know of the tales. That is why he's returned today, or so he would insist should anyone dare ask. But Bard is a creature as curious as the wolf in his own way, casual and calm with an elf in a way Thranduil has not seen since Dale and Esgaroth were great, and rarely even then. Most of his people overawe the Northern Men and always have, so it is not simply that Bard doesn't know his true identity either. Although it _was_ amusing for Thranduil to lie about his name with the truth of his rank. Bard is Girion's descendant, of course, and Girion too had such an ease with the elves he met. This Thranduil knows, can see in Bard's features and the dark of his hair, though Girion's eyes were dark as well while this last child of his line...

 

 

There is _something_ about his eyes, grey and green with a glint of something Thranduil has not been close enough to see. Something almost familiar, that Thranduil cannot quite identify. In truth it all matters very little, Bard's strange calm, his puzzling eyes, and his air of something almost wild kept tightly leashed, but if that is so, why did Thranduil again order that the barrels be delayed? If that is so, then...

 

 

“Why do you drop tokens in the river?” he calls even as he approaches the dock, and Bard does not jump, merely goes very still where before he had been cleaning the longbow he always carries. More still than Thranduil has ever seen a human go, although it has been a very long time since he associated with any but his own kind outside of necessary meetings or brief encounters. His knowledge of human body language is therefore limited. But without really moving, Bard looks up and watches Thranduil approach, a twist to his mouth as though he is weighing Thranduil's question and his own answer.

 

 

“Yet another of those superstitions, I'm afraid,” he says. “My mother taught me that there are sprites in the woods and in the water, and that it's rude to pass through their homes and not acknowledge them.”

 

 

“And these tales are told often in Laketown? Or in Dale that was?” Thranduil asks, already doubting it. If they were, he is sure those foolish bargemen who had come before would have indulged in similar behavior, and they did not.

 

 

“No,” Bard says, eyes dropping to the bow in his hands for a moment. “My mother came from further north than this, a small village that I fear no longer stands. She couldn't stay home, or return there with me to show me where she came from, and so she gave me our legends instead. As I said before, Master Aran, for those of us who are not immortal, traditions are how we ensure something remains.”

 

 

“I am not your unimpressive town leader,” Thranduil says, surprising himself. “The name I gave you is all the address required.” It's simply because, knowing the meaning of his alias, the two words together are nonsensical, but the gesture nonetheless garners a wry grin.

 

 

“No, that you certainly aren't,” Bard murmurs, eyes narrowed slightly. “Any other human tales you want to know about, _Aran_?”

 

 

And that is why he sought the bargeman out today, so Thranduil matches the mildly playful note of the Man's voice when he says, “One of the youngest of the guards has come back from a mission full of whispers of giant wolves,” he says. “Wolves with the eyes of Men. He tells all of us who will listen that such a description would suit a creature currently spending time in the forest.” He had not initially meant to say more than that a guard spoke of legends, but Thranduil has long since learned to trust his instincts. He looks into eyes more green than grey and thinks of eyes more grey than green – and he wonders.

 

 

He does not _know_ , and he imagines he will not know yet for some time. But he does wonder, and in the wondering he offers a challenge. Now to see what Girion's heir will do with it...

 

 

“Oh, aye. I have heard a bit about that. Not from anyone in these parts, though. We had some traders come through from the south. Rohan. They have a wolf in their haunted forest there, whatever it's called. Something that begins with an f, if I remember right.”

 

 

“Are you saying that the Greenwood is haunted?” He is not truly diverted, but the comment is the expected one, and Thranduil does not mean to upset the balance of the moment by acting oddly.

 

 

“I'm saying there are tales of this forest as well, and most call it Mirkwood now, don't they? But the Rohan wolf is helpful. If yours is too, best to leave it be, I'd imagine. If it meant harm, surely your king would know by now, wouldn't he? If he is so careful of his realm that he ensures even a harmless mortal bargeman will be carefully observed upon taking his post, surely he'd know as soon as an animal turns dangerous, yes?”

 

 

If Thranduil didn't know better, he would think that Bard knows who he is and is either mocking him or aiming for a more playful teasing. But there is almost no possibility that any human residing in Laketown would be in a position to learn Sindarin and thus recognize the word 'aran' as meaning 'king'. He cannot rule out the chance that Bard may have left for a time, served as a caravan guard or similar, but that would still make learning Sindarin unlikely unless the caravan went so far as Gondor.

 

 

There is the distant rumble of barrels, but this time Thranduil does not leave as Bard collects them. He watches instead, watches the Man's dark form under the surface of the water and the ease with which he swings the barrels up. An ease very like how he'd drawn his bow at their first meeting.

 

 

He does not say farewell, as has become his habit. But this time, he watches the Man leave with his barge, watches him nod a farewell – because apparently Bard's mother taught him basic courtesy along with her myths. Thranduil inclines his head only the least bit, hardly thinking about it. He is wondering, instead, about the faint movement he thought he detected under the surface of the river, something that appeared to nudge Bard's leg. It's not something that could have been missed. And yet the Man had not so much as stumbled. Legends from the North...

 

 

A curious creature indeed.

 

 


End file.
